This talk has been approved by New York State for 2 hours of Continuing Education Credit for LMSWs & LCSWs, and will be led by Suzanne Iasenza, PhD.

One of the most helpless clinical moments for patients and therapists is the declaration of the absence of sexual attraction. The absence of attraction may be described as a loss of sexual attraction that was once present, an absence of sexual attraction from the beginning of a relationship, or a struggle to manage feelings of repulsion or disgust.Unlike sexual desire which may wax or wane over time, sexual attraction is often experienced as fixed and unchangeable. What is a therapist to do? Utilizing an integration of psychodynamic, systems, and cognitive behavioral approaches, this presentation will explore how to co-create a safe therapeutic environment for couples to identify the intra-psychic and interpersonal sources of and solutions to this most emotionally challenging presenting problem.

Suzanne Iasenza, PhD is on the faculties of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ICP) and the Adelphi University Derner Institute’s Postgraduate Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She also teaches in the workshop series at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. She is co-editor of the books Lesbians and Psychoanalysis: Revolutions in Theory and Practice (1995) and Lesbians, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis: The Second Wave (2004) and maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and sex therapy in New York City. Her most recent paper, “What’s Queer About Sex: Expanding Sexual Frames in Theory and Practice” (2010) was published in the journal Family Process.